


Clydeland's Twelve Days of Christmas

by AtlinMerrick



Series: Clydeland [5]
Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Bookshop, Clydeland, Clydesland, Fake Dating, First Time, Holiday warm fuzzies, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Mpreg, Sharing a Bed, Soulmates, Tropes, accidental voyeur/spying, coffeeshop, enemies or friends to lovers, kylux adjacent, pet play/anthropomorphism, pirates/tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-09-21 05:39:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: Twelve tiny tales with common tropes, from bed sharing to first time. Also writingKyluxandTechieniciantales!Mpreg





	1. Barmbrack Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twelve tiny tales with common tropes, from bed sharing to first time. Also writing [Kylux](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038031/chapters/40059065) and [Techienician](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043248/chapters/40071740) tales!
> 
> _Mpreg_

Some people didn't know Clyde was pregnant until he was five months along.

"—an Lottie, you know that lady who works at the Dollar Tree down off I77? She thought I was just puttin on weight."

Earl shook his head and sipped his beer.

"She said it was on account of me dressing up as Santa Claus last Christmas. She figured I was getting ready for _next_ Christmas."

Earl shook his head again, whether at Clyde's exasperation or Lottie's assumption was not clear.

Clyde looked down at his belly. He was not five months gone anymore, he was nine months on the nose and round-bellied _big._ "Stens says I look like a barmbrack, which is a sort of Irish bread. I've come to understand it has raisins in it."

For anyone who knew Clyde it was easy enough to infer raisin-esque moles scattered across his big bun of a belly. Of course no one needed to know that Stensland sometimes quite literally buttered this particular bun. Those same people did not need to know Stens licking the butter off usually made Clyde come.

Earl smiled into his beer, as if he knew the stuff no one needed to know.

"Anyway, Lottie says it's gonna be a girl cause I'm carryin high and Stens says it's gonna be a boy cause his mam carried him right up near her heart, so I guess what I'm sayin is we'll see."

Earl figured they would.

A few customers came into the bar and Clyde went off to serve them, his short arm resting high on the swell of his stomach and stroking with the same absent-minded gentleness he'd started doing around last Christmas.

That's when Earl guessed Clyde was pregnant, though he kept that to himself. When the boys announced the news come Valentine's, he'd raised his beer in a congratulatory toast.

Earl don't say much.

_—  
I'll be writing wee Clydeland tales for the 12 days of Christmas with these tropes in this order: family/kids/mpreg; first time; coffeeshop; fake dating; sharing a bed; pirates/tentacles; enemies or friends to lovers; bookshop; arranged marriage; pet play/anthropomorphism; soulmates; accidental voyeur/spying. Prompt! P.S. This is [barmbrack](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Barmbrack.jpg). P.P.S. Also writing a [Kylux](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038031/chapters/40059065) version._


	2. Of Use

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clyde—for the first time and the last—asks his lover a simple question.
> 
> _First time_

Stens places the fork on the left and the knife on the right.

You need fine-grained dexterity to wield a steak knife without puncture wounds, (Stensland knows this for firsthand fact) and while Clyde’s myoelectric hand is steady as you please with a fork, it's his flesh hand that possesses the deftness with which to safely wield a knife.

The point of that is _this:_ Stensland automatically puts Clyde's fork on the left and his knife on the right when he sets their dinner table. He also folds underpants into nice little triangles when they come out of the dryer, places socks on the heater in winter so they're toasty warm, t-shirts in the freezer in summer to cool them down and all of that…

…has led to this moment where Clyde—for the first time and the last—asks his lover a simple question.

He asks it with exasperation and annoyance because he's had a long and fucked up night at the bar, so when Stensland offers to massage his back even though he was sound asleep until Clyde went and stepped on one of his own fucking shoes, nearly cracking his head open on the door frame, and even though Stens has to get up early for his own job, there he is, insisting he can give Clyde a massage and so Clyde just finally has to say something.

"Would you just give it a rest Stens, just, Jesus why do you always have to be _helpin_ me?"

Stens is on his knees in the middle of their bed, rugged up in his flannel jammies, his extra-thick alpaca wool socks, and wrapped tight in Clyde’s terrycloth robe, all of which he sleeps in when he goes to bed alone.

So there he is, a man who's gone to bed alone four nights running, a man who's been woke up by swearing, a man who is not doing too well at his new job because it involves computers and silence, neither of which he's good at, there he is with bright eyes and a chipper smile offering to give Clyde a massage and basically Clyde just…does not get it.

Suddenly Stensland _does._

Because he stops patting the mattress, stops doing those little finger flexes even though most of his massages involve elbows since Stens has the hand strength of a particularly infirm moth, and now he's placed those pale, gentle hands on his knees and he's blinking at Clyde.

"What?"

It's been bothering Clyde for awhile now, how Stensland is. He didn't notice it when they were first together and then when he did he couldn't stop. Stop seeing how Stens _does_ things for him. Opening doors or buying cupcakes. Bringing him a cold drink on a hot night, or a warm drink on a cold one. Pointing out tiny dogs because he knows they make Clyde's heart go squishy.

Clyde sits on the bed, only just this moment realizing what the problem is.

"I can't do for you what you do for me, okay? You do all this nice stuff and I just…I'm not as nice. Sometimes I don't remember to bring you a movie snack until you ask for it, and when you wake me up too early I'm _grumpy_ but here you are being _nice._ I just."

Sitting on the edge of that bed Clyde feels his already-bad night get worse because who talks like this? Who tells their sweetheart that his kindness is exhausting? That his consideration is inconsiderate?

Behind him Clyde feels Stensland get off the bed. He figures he's going to be left alone and that would be very justified, but instead Stens comes round and sits next to him, those fragile-looking hands in his own lap and he talks to Clyde by talking to them.

"As you know, since leaving Ireland I've moved quite a bit. Most of those…sojourns…were inspired after employers or romantic partners relieved me of my duties."

For all his cackling laughter and sunny outlook, Clyde knows Stensland's thoughts are as deep and complex as his own, so he kept his mouth shut and let Stens gather his thoughts.

"I've been knocking around the world for awhile is what I'm saying and…I love being in one place and having a purpose, you know? I love putting baby powder in your boots so they stay spring-time fresh, and I love slipping our beers into sweet little koozies I buy off Etsy, and I love staying up late and talking with you even if I'll be tired the next day. I love _you_ and I love feeling like I have a reason to be alive, you know? That I do things that matter to someone."

Stensland's gaze shifts a little bit to the left, so he's now addressing Clyde's hands. "And you _are_ nice because you let me do all those things. And you know, you do things too."

On their first date Stensland pooped with the bathroom door open—including wiping his butt while he chattered away—but about some things he can still be shy.

So when Stens starts blushing Clyde knows, he absolutely knows his sweetheart is thinking of the weekend, when he got the courage to ask for a thing and Clyde gave him that thing.

The thing involved lifting Stens up, pressing him against the wall, and going at it hell for leather until Stensland came. Clyde did not, because he can't orgasm when terrified and since he was sure he'd drop Stensland and break his neck or somehow his own dick, it's not an exaggeration to say Clyde's terror was real.

"Tonight was bad. We had to call the cops on some out-of-town guy, and then I bent my toe sideways on my own damn boot tryin' to tip-toe into the bedroom, and then I almost brained myself on the door, and is it okay if we just cuddle please? Also, I love you, too."

Most people just want to be of use. To have a reason to wake, to breathe, to smile. Sometimes purpose is hard to find but when a man finds it, well that man best cherish it.

Tucked against Stensland's chest, dozy as fingers comb through his hair, Clyde's going to try hard to do that.

"What sort of baby powder is it anyway, cause it smells real good."

Clyde can feel Stensland beaming. "Oh! There's a shop down in Charlotte that sells gentlemen's fineries. They have all sorts of things. Scented powders, moustache waxes, those lovely little deodorant wipes for really humid days when…"

Clyde's not sure if he'll be able to stay awake for the whole conversation, but he is sure that tomorrow he's going to get up early and make Stens some French toast. Then he's gonna cut it up into nice little pieces too, with his favorite steak knife.

—  
_To be of use: I really think that's what most of us want. Purpose, a point, just some good damn reasons to be alive. I hope you've got yours. P.S. Prompts welcome, next trope is coffeeshop._


	3. Syrup Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Irish man walks into Clyde Logan's cafe...
> 
> _Coffeeshop_

"I get drunk on coffee," said the Irish man the first time he came to the cafe. Then he'd sipped his third latte—"one pump caramel and one of vanilla please, oh that's just lovely"—and giggled, as if to prove his point.

Clyde had been besotted from that day to this.

Mind you, Clyde's been a barista a long time. He doesn't even much drink coffee, but it was either work at No Doze Cafe or Duck Tape and the cafe was closer. It's a good enough job he went and learned how to do it with one hand when he got back from Iraq.

The point is, Clyde's been at this awhile and he's seen stuff. Marriage proposals. Breakups. A flash mob came through once. A production company out of L.A. even filmed a scene here. He was an extra. Didn't much care for it. Movies seem like a lot of hard work between a lot of being bored.

Anyways, Clyde's seen a lot of stuff in his dozen or so years doing this, but he can't rightly recall anyone saying _this._

"When I say drunk I mean pleasantly tipsy. You know, that all-too-brief period where every social faux pas is blissfully forgotten leaving behind nothing but boldness and good will."

The pretty Irish man had then raised his extra hot, extra shot latte—"with whipped cream kind shopkeep!"—and sipped it with such a bewitching grin Clyde didn't even notice the whip left behind on the man's nose.

That was four months ago.

"Half lychee, half toasted marshmallow!"

Which brought them to today.

"Peanut butter and saffron!"

And going gently mad.

"Watermelon and white chocolate!"

Clyde's long since shut up shop prior to the four-day Christmas holiday. The door is locked. They are the last two inside.

"Blueberry muffin and orchid!"

And Clyde is making tiny lattes, shot glass-sized wee wonders, to which they are adding syrups.

"Lavender and green banana!"

Creating potions.

"Liquorice and violet!"

Taking sips and moving on.

"Balsamic fig and tiramisu!"

Neither has said anything about why they're still here, either side of the espresso machine. But they know.

"Tomato and nougat!"

At this point Stensland can no longer use, "I'm new in West Virginia" as an excuse for coming so often to the cafe.

"Bubble gum and cucumber!"

At this point Clyde doesn't believe Stens gets drunk on lattes.

"Rum and red pepper!"

But he's just realized something.

 _He_ does.

Cause Clyde feels good right now. Dreamy. Like all is right with the world.

So he slow blinks at the pretty Irish man who comes to his cafe before work and after work and sometimes at lunch too, and Clyde says, soft as anything, "Stens are you tryin to get me tipsy?"

The pretty Irish man laughs. Clyde loves his laugh. He wants to kiss it.

So he does.

Stensland Feye doesn't need to be drunk to do bold things. Stensland's been a bold thing doer since before he upped stakes and left Ireland. So it's easy for him to lean in to Clyde's kiss.

Same as it's easy for him to put his knee on the counter between them. And then his other knee. And then crawl a little. And then wrap his arms round Clyde's neck. And then—

Neither much notices falling over. Or the ten pin tipping of syrup bottles.

Later, much later when they're licking each other clean in Clyde's big bed, they do notice something real interesting.

The lime goes _really_ well with the mojito.

—  
_I didn't make up any of[these](https://www.gourmetsyrups.com.au/shop/) here [syrups](https://shop.torani.com/Syrups/c/Torani@Syrups). This story was inspired by [FrankyOh](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/199593662) who said barista!Clyde and wild drinks. Thank you Franky!_


	4. As Unusual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bookshop_
> 
> Clyde was kinda tired of as usual. Tired of daydreaming at Duck Tape. Tired of saying nothing. 
> 
> So maybe, well just maybe, he could do something…a little unusual?

They kept catching each other. It was like the universe had it out for them.

Or in for them.

Or something.

Clyde couldn't really say because Clyde was usually too busy darn near dying each time he saw the pretty redhead. And yet Clyde did it, he kept going back to the bookshop, he kept going back into the back room of the bookshop, and he kept letting the pretty redhead catch him looking at books with artfully lewd covers between which were a couple hundred pages of panting gay porn.

In the last six weeks they'd run across each other in the back room so often that at this point Clyde got a chubby just driving past the bookshop. Considering the shop was on his way to work at Duck Tape this was often somewhat slightly problematic.

Why he couldn't just have seen the guy in the bar, like he's seen just about all of Boone County's twenty thousand people over the years, Clyde does not know, but suffice to say the beautiful man—who only seems to exist in Jerri's Junk Shop and Book Emporium—has now become a fixture of Clyde's daydreams during long bar shifts.

Mostly made up of tangled red hair, absurd eyelashes, and cream, the sylph-like beauty had green eyes, long legs, and a high-pitched giggle deployed every single time they caught each other coming through the back room's curtain.

And catch each other they regularly did because apparently Clyde and Stensland—he's heard Jerri shout the man's name—are both horny and super-fast readers, so Clyde'd seen Stensland near on a dozen times in the last little bit, and at this point he feels like they're sort of kind of a little bit dating.

Right, he's not delusional and so he knows they aren't, but Clyde's fantasies when things are slow at Duck Tape have them doing a lot more than that and right now what Clyde's _heart_ is doing is pounding double-time because he just heard two things: the tinkling of the bell over Jerri's door, and Stensland's happy, hollered hello.

As friendly as Clyde, Stensland always shoots the breeze with Jerri before heading to the book room in the back (curtained off on account of a couple little kids once mistaking a book cover with a man riding a mechanical bull as something to do with horses; they apparently missed the guy's ass-less chaps and the big blue dildo up his butt).

Anyway, Stensland has an Irish accent and always sounds happy and Clyde knows it's him because though they have not said one word single word to each other he's heard Jerri telling him about new books "in the back" and sometimes Clyde's holding the very book they're talking about in his own hand.

Clyde wasn't holding anything right now because as soon as he heard Stensland's voice he started tugging his tucked-in t-shirt out of his jeans so he could hide the erection he was starting, so when Stensland ducked behind the curtain, all Clyde did was nod, blush, and choke on his own spit. As usual.

As usual.

As usual.

_As usual._

Oh lord, Clyde was kinda tired of as usual. He was tired of daydreams at Duck Tape. He was tired of being quiet. He's not a shy man, is Clyde, but he is a study-observe man. While that tendency had served him well over in Iraq, it turned into something a lot like stagnation once he got back home to Boone County.

So maybe, well just maybe he could do something a little _un_ usual?

As the curtain dropped back in place, Stensland gave him an eye-crinkling smile and absolutely positively blushed clear on up to his glorious red hairline. In reply Clyde's heart seemed to go triple-time and he reached for a couple books on a top shelf, and pretended to look at them a couple seconds.

Then Clyde turned _as usual_ into something else.

He placed one of the books not back in its original location, but right in Stensland's eyeline.

_Gorgeous Gingers Gone Wild_

On the cover three red-haired, sylph-like beauties frolicked bare-butt naked in the surf.

Before he could lose his nerve or die of tachycardia-related heart failure, Clyde put the second book beside the first.

_There's a Randy Redhead in My Bed_

The next three seconds proceeded to feel so long and so surreal that Clyde thought he was having an out-of-body experience comprised of the need to vomit and a ringing in his ears.

Then in peripheral vision Clyde saw Stensland smile and put a book down beside Clyde's two.

_Taming a Black-Haired Beauty_

On the cover stood a massive man, his mane of dark-hair wind-blown, his bare chest criss-crossed with something that looked an awful lot like horse tack.

Clyde's chubby, long since gone to full-mast, maybe a little bit started to leak.

Before the whole tachycardia thing could become a real issue, Stensland turned into a skinny-limbed flurry of motion, placing book beside book beside book.

_Sexy Small-Town Soldier_

_There Wasn't Anything He Wouldn't Do_

_Doing the Dirty with Daddy_

He was just placing _I Fucked On the First Date_ next to those just as Clyde was setting down _Wet, Hard & Horny_ when their hands touched.

And right there was forever the end of _as usual,_ because Stensland slid his fingers between Clyde's and, because over the last six weeks they'd side-eye-seen one another paging through novels on come eating, lingerie-wearing, tickling, bondage, and breathe play—and that was just in the first week—they kind of jumped from _we don't even know each other_ to discretely humping each other's leg in less time than it would later take Jerri to properly reshelve the books.

She didn't mind. For weeks every time Clyde's shown up at the bookshop she's called Stensland on the pretense of having "some new books you might like."

She never did say what those books were. She figured nature would eventually take its course.

As usual.

—  
_So I'm not filling prompts in order or in a timely manner, but you know what? I don't think Clyde or Stensland mind even a little bit. I hope you don't either._


	5. Enemy Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look, Clyde Logan's a patient man, but one of these times he's gonna maybe break something.
> 
> Time to have it out with his neighbor, Stensland.
> 
> _Enemies to friends to lovers_

Look, Clyde's an easy-going man and there ain't no one who'd say otherwise.

And even if he _had_ been the type to fly off the handle, his time as a soldier, then a bartender, would probably have put a damper on any desire he might have to get shouty when provoked.

However.

Clyde has talked to his neighbor three times about this. When Stens first asked if he could collect worms from Clyde's front yard he'd shrugged and said yes.

Except the man just…he keeps…well in actual fact Clyde doesn't know what he's still doing digging out there in winter. All he does know is the pretty little pest keeps leaving soft spots in his front yard, and when Clyde goes over to ask him what the heck, Stensland just blinks big eyes at him and before Clyde knows it he's forgotten to be angry _again._

Look, Clyde doesn't do much yard work so it's no skin off his nose whether his lawn has worms or not, but Stens just needs to be a bit more careful with those damn _holes._ He's gone and twisted his ankle twice and now standing at the stove Clyde sees a buncha newly-turned dirt spots peeking through the February snow and—

Damn it! He's gone and burned the bacon the bad sort of black. While he starts breakfast all over, Clyde tells himself he'll have it out with his cute neighbor soon, before he goes and breaks something.

Course with this and that, soon never happens.

The bar stays busy for one, and then the cooking class he signed up for starts, and then come March Stensland invites the whole block to his St Patrick's day party. It turns out Clyde really likes the guy and he forgets about all those worm holes and then come April they end up in the same cooking class down at the community college and start a friendly rivalry for Best Bake of the Week.

Then in May something happens that changes everything.

Clyde Logan's yard begins to bloom.

First it's hyacinths. Then daffodils. Then paperwhites pop up, and for a long little bit Clyde just can't figure out how all those pretty flowers got into his lawn.

Then the tulips finally appeared, filling in all the empty spaces, and at last Clyde Logan sees what he was meant to see.

It's only a few minutes later he and Stensland share their first kiss, standing inside a big heart in Clyde's lawn, made of pretty red, yellow, orange, and pink flowers planted months and months ago, one wintry Valentine's day.

—  
_A weeny little Clydeland for today, the fourteenth of February—which is the day Stensland plants all the bulbs. Thank you Admiral Winklepicker for the prompt that inspired this!_


	6. There's Twenty, All Told

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sharing a Bed_
> 
>  
> 
> It was a dark and stormy night, Clyde Logan was in bed with his crush, and he was hard as a table lamp.

"I am very sorry Stensland."

Clyde Logan was very sorry. He was also stiff as a board. In a couple ways.

"I do not know why Miss Moore put us in the same bed."

Clyde Logan absolutely knew why Miss Moore had put himself and Stensland Feye in the same Soft Solutions show-room bed. However, there was no easy way for Clyde to say to Stensland…

_Miss Moore has known me since I was five-years-old where, she has told me, the first words I ever spoke to her were 'I kissed Danny! I love him!' Which is to say your boss has known I am gay before I knew I was gay, and also she may or may not have noticed that every time single time I come in here to buy a pillow—and I have fifteen pillows now Stens—I make moon eyes at you._

No, there was no easy way for Clyde Logan to say those words to the man lying next to him in the dark and so Clyde did not, in fact, say those words. Instead he lay ramrod still at the very edge of a comfortable gel-slash-foam-top mattress and he hoped that the man at whom he's been making moon eyes for three months and fifteen pillows did not notice that he had a proximity erection.

"That's not to say I'm ungrateful to you and your boss for sharing these beds of course. It's certainly convenient to be trapped inside a furniture store during a hurricane."

Clyde smiled gratefully, but since the power was out and it was several hour past nightfall, Stensland did not see this smile nor, regrettably, Clyde Logan's stiffy.

As if to say _it_ saw both smile and stiffy, lightning brightened all the windows of Boone County's very first Soft Solutions and then it happened:

_*BOOM!*_

And immediately the other thing happened: Stensland jumped right out of his skin again and in pure reflex Clyde reached across their shared mattress and clutched his crush before he fell off the bed. Again. Still and all, Clyde let him go quick-like cause some folks didn't much care for his myoelectric hand.

"Hey there, you okay?"

Shaking like the wind-tossed trees outside no, nope, Stens was not okay in any way at all. However he blinked his bright eyes over to Clyde and in a voice shrill with false cheer said, "It's a veritable mystery for the ages how I can still be scared of a little weather!"

As if calling him on his bravado, lighting flashed, followed quickly by a—

_*BOOM!*_

—and Stensland Feye fell off the bed.

It was reflex, Clyde scrambling to the edge of the mattress and holding out black plastic. He'd been a lefty before he lost his hand and he was a lefty still in times of sharp need. And winds.

Nervous shivering on the floor, Stens reached back for several reasons. He himself has the weight and width of a hairbrush so he has no business throwing _you're not perfect_ stones at men missing hands because they are war heroes. Plus Stens fell in love with Clyde Logan completely after the purchase of decorative pillow two. Or one.

"We don't have storms like this in Ireland," he squeaked as Clyde tugged. Then, wriggling across the cushy comfort of Soft Solution's premium gel-slash-foam top mattress, still clutching Clyde's hand, he continued to babble. "I mean maybe we actually do somewhere, but not where I'm from. Or maybe they do where I'm from but not that I know of. I tell you what, I could ask me mam but if I did I'd have to tell her about the weather in the American state of West Virginia and here's a thing about that: My mam's already worried about me what with what happened in Seattle and then going practically incognito for a week while I drove across your extremely large country and—"

_*BOOM*_

Before Stens could do another header off the bed, Clyde instinctively took hold of Sten's waist with his flesh-and-blood hand and _shhhhh'ed_ his breathe soft between them. "S'okay, s'okay, you can hear that the storm's goin south now if you listen close."

Stensland bobbed his chin up-and-down in agreement and or by virtue of his entire body shaking.

That trembling right there was a heartbreaker for Clyde. It reminded him of his kittens he got when he was small. Lady and Baby Girl grew up to be sloe-eyed sleek and arrogant, but when they were still so little they fit in the palms of his eleven-year-old hands his kittens were scared of storms, too. So Clyde's instinct then was his instinct now—he gathered Stensland close so that he could feel the solid thrum of his heart.

And here's the thing about that: Clyde believes a little too much in bad luck, sure, but he can see good things where they are too, and ever since he was a kid he's been big. Though that has at times been a trial, other times he's been able to do something very fine with that size: Protect.

Baby Girl in particular used to wriggle her way under his arm some stormy midnights, curling up tight against the lee of his already-broadening chest. She'd set to buzzing loud, her purr vibrating in the hollows of him and often as not it was a very fine feedback loop—her contentment leached out any of the day's trials and tribulations for Clyde, and in turn he'd curl up so that Baby Girl could feel protected by his bulk. They'd both sleep that way through the long summer nights.

"You're not afraid?" Stens whispered somewhere near Clyde's left nipple and for a moment Clyde completely forgot the why of their quick intimacy and then—

 _*BOOM*_  
*BOOM*  
*BOOM*

—he remembered. As a matter of fact, he would remember so well that when they discuss this point in bed a few weeks from now, the point of who pressed himself hard against who, Clyde will know that his version is the right one. Their discussion three weeks from this night will be naked and heated, naked because they'll have just sucked each other off, and heated because, in an effort to do a sexy striptease, Stensland will throw one of his sandals over his shoulder and bust the ceiling fan over Clyde's bed. Fortunately Soft Solutions sells those, too. And Stens gets a twenty percent employee discount.

Anyway, the answer, they will eventually agree, while Stensland flaps his hands about in an effort to cool them off, is that after that triptych of thunder nearly levitated Stens off the mattress, they pressed themselves together at the same time. Because Clyde Logan has purchased fifteen pillows, two bedding sets, and a very nice table lamp trying to woo Stensland Feye, and Stensland, well he has long since been wooed.

So he pressed his face to the big chest he's been side-eyeing for three months now, he breathed deep of the faint scents of aftershave and deodorant, and over the sound of rumbling and of rain, Stens listened to Clyde's reply.

"Not of thunder nor lightning no I am not. Not really afraid of any sort of loud sounds. People seem to think I should be, what with the war and all, but I grew up around storms like this my whole life and you know what they mean to me instead? Lightnin bugs. Not during of course but after. Me and Jimmy, then Mellie when she came along, we'd all run around catching em in our hands after the clouds blew away. We'd look at them flashing through the gaps in our fingers for awhile and then we'd let em go. So for me thunder just makes me think of running across the lawn with my brother and sister and bein little."

Behind closed eyes Stensland saw those tiny flashing lights, sweet yellowy-green glows caged in small hands, and pressing his forehead to Clyde's chest—

_boom boom boom_

—Stens heard himself a finer sort of thunder.

Fifteen pillows, two bedding sets, and a table lamp may not sound like much to some, but if you are a hopeful man, a man willing to move three thousand miles across an astonishingly large country in search of a better life, it is more than enough to believe that perhaps you have found a rarer thing still—a chance at love.

So Stensland found comfort in the thunder of Clyde's heart and in his sweet rain of words.

"That's not to say I'm not afraid of some things though cause I am."

_(Part[two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037689/chapters/44503084))_

_—  
Decorative pillow [two](https://www.dhresource.com/0x0s/f2-albu-g4-M01-2D-47-rBVaEVm_NvqAAqpnAAlJZLT-EJ0323.jpg/new-flower-printed-cushion-covers-3d-soft-linen-pillow-cases-creative-tree-pattern-cover-decorative-pillows.jpg). And [one](https://www.dhresource.com/0x0s/f2-albu-g4-M00-A1-03-rBVaEFm_NvyALZ8LAAmBhGiIrbo822.jpg/new-flower-printed-cushion-covers-3d-soft-linen-pillow-cases-creative-tree-pattern-cover-decorative-pillows.jpg). The entire set of twenty is unveiled in the next chapter. What tension!_


	7. A Tight Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Accidental Spying_
> 
> Clyde Logan knows precisely what he is doing to his boyfriend and Stensland knows that he knows. 
> 
> Cuteness chubbies are _so_ a thing.
> 
> (This is part two of a two-chapter story; here's [part one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17037689/chapters/44470684).)

Stensland's a fidgety fellow, a creature of wiggles, giggles, and head-thrown-back guffaws.

You'd never know it right now however, because Mr Feye, lately of Seattle by way of Toronto and Dublin, a man who for a long time couldn't be still in one _city_ much less a room, well that man was breath-held motionless while he listened to Clyde Logan talk.

"I think everybody's afraid of something and I know it's thunderstorms for lots of folk but for me, my thing is people gettin real close." Here Clyde's hand twitched tighter on Stens' hip, as if to say _cept for you._

"Like at to the shoppin center, I'll get antsy if someone's walking close up behind me while they chat on their phone. Or standing in line at the supermarket and a trolley presses up against my leg? I have to turn sideways some, so I can just see who's back there. So to answer your question the long way around is I'm afraid of plenty of things and I hope you know I don't think anything about _you_ bein afraid."

High alert is a tiring thing and it doesn't take much fight or flight stress to leave a man worn out. Add to that the soft comfort of a kind man and instead of carrying his half of the conversation Stensland snuffled a bit of snot and _hmmm'ed_ to show that he was listening.

Clyde fished a crumpled cocktail napkin out of his pocket and handed it to Stens and, though the lightning and thunder really were heading south they were taking their time, so Clyde kept on talking.

"There was this thing my memaw taught me when I was real small and _that_ used to scare me a lot too, the kind that makes you kind of all shivery you know? She showed me how to catch dragonflies all careful, so you could look at em close up and I tell you what, every time I'd get one by the tail it'd do this curling up thing until its mouth parts were against my finger and I was always terrified it'd bite me.

"Soon as I'd catch one of the blue or green or sometimes yellow things, it'd curl up and I'd holler and let it go and run off into the house to shout at pawpaw and make him check my fingers had no bits chewed out of them. I did that the entire summer I was seven lord knows why. Come to think of it, I must've just loved those shivers and I think all my jumpin around made my grandparents laugh."

Stensland thought about telling Clyde the wide array of things that gave _him_ the shivers including a perfect strawberry scone (with icing!) and how the tiny fishes nibbling on his fingertips down by the lake thrilled him but then—

_*BOOM*_

—he startled again instead, cuddled closer to the soft comfort of Clyde's chest—

_boom boom boom_

—and became aware of something of Clyde's that was not…soft.

Unaware that Stensland was now preoccupied with his not-soft thing, Clyde continued trying to distract him, this time with a story about exploding cattails but it was far too late. Stensland could not concentrate on a single word because he was struggling against sudden horniness and against the thing that happens when he's suddenly horny—

"Mr Clyde Logan is that a Cara & Company thirty-inch silver-plated table lamp in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

—but alas, too late.

Nothing happened for a bit of forever, or exactly three seconds.

As those eternal moments tick-tocked by, gales of nine on the Beaufort wind scale shook the building around them but they had ceased to matter. What mattered now to Clyde Logan and Stensland Feye—what in truth has mattered since the second time they chatted over all twenty _Trembling Trees_ decorative pillows—was the proximity of their bodies.

In that dark and stormy night, _both_ now as stiff as a Davis Driftwood centerpiece, they began to twist a little and turn a little—Stensland not once letting go of Clyde's myoelectric hand—shimmying and wriggling until they were tucked under Stens' favourite Madison Park Chester Green bedding.

*

Delilah Moore runs a tight ship. This has several meanings and some of those are these:

A tight ship means keeping her shop in the black and doing so in the only sustainable fashion she knows: With happy employees. Employees who run best on a job well done, who are proud of their knowledge, who are warmed under her praise.

Such people account for the full compliment of her staff here in Boone County's one and only Soft Solutions, including the man she hired away from company headquarters during a visit to Seattle. This particular employee goes so far above and beyond that when a customer asks Stens' for "an upholstery that closely matches cat vomit," not only does Stensland find for them the perfect faux-distressed twill in a lovely greeny-yellow, he provides a printout of tips on how to help cats manage hairballs.

A tight ship for Delilah Moore means maintaining stellar relationships with each friend, neighbor, and acquaintance she has made in her fifty-five years living in West Virginia, including the dark-haired boy she has known since he was five-years-old. Clyde Logan's parents taught him very specific southern manners and though that boy is now a man of six foot three, to him Delilah is was and ever shall be _Miss_ Moore. Though she has gone by Ms since 1972—after proclaiming to her then-boyfriend _fuck it, no one needs to know my marital status and if mother doesn't like it she can die mad about it—_ Delilah does not correct him.

A tight ship also means looking where a customer's eyes tend to linger, where their fingers tend to stroke. This has allowed Delilah to exceed sales projections every quarter since she first took on management of Soft Solutions West, and it has also meant learning more about a customer than a preference for linen over leather. It means seeing Clyde Logan's bright, eye-squinching smile every single time Stensland shows him a pillow or an upholstery patch.

Finally and at last it means doing something about that. When she, her employees, and a dozen customers knew they would be storm-trapped in the shop until Hurricane Douglas blew through, Ms Moore made sure to bed the boys down together. Though she's kind of trying to not notice all the wiggling going on over on that California king, Stensland's giggling like a budgerigar on helium and the low rumble of Clyde's laughter is traveling through half the shop.

As she roams her domain like a benign general, accidentally and repeatedly spying on something she maintains she is not spying on, Delilah Moore plumps pillows.

As it turns out, for an engagement gift she gives the boys the final five of _Trembling Trees_ pillows. They really should have the whole set.

*

It's a storm a few days after that engagement party where Clyde tells Stens about Lady and Baby Girl. This results in several things and those things include these:

The inward curve of Clyde's shoulders, the waterfall of hair when he bows his head to croon at remembered kittens, these give Stens' willy a cuteness chubby.

Clyde knows precisely what he is doing to his boyfriend and Stens will know that he knows.

What will also happen is that two days after returning from their honeymoon they will adopt a kitten and a ten-year-old cat from the shelter. The cat will be named Delilah and the kitten will be Little Miss.

Finally, the boys will buy a Soft Solutions sofa whose color closely matches cat vomit. Long enough to fit a six foot three inch man, Clyde will often fall asleep on it, Little Miss nestled in the curl of his left arm, Delilah in his right.

Stensland gets an awful lot of cuteness chubbies.

_The End_

—  
_Here are[cattails being esploded](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh--nnGdwX0). Also the driftwood [sculpture](https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/d0359911-7835-497b-b2b8-d5642c09bd76/svn/brown-imax-sculptures-70253-64_1000.jpg) in question. The entire [set of decorative pillows](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D6EmSYLU0AAL4W6.jpg), that Delilah helps them complete._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/atlinmerrick) and would shout pretty giddy-loud if you said hello.


End file.
